I am somewhat skeptical of those who pride themselves on being data driven in education, especially as it relates to student learning outcomes. Students are not machines, primarily to be seen as the producers of data, nor are they to be primarily the objects, i.e., the victims of data. Now don’t get me wrong, we do need data to help us in policy and decision making, but we must be ever cognizant of the one sided, lopsided quantifiable “reality” and “educational injustice” that being data driven can present.
Data is really a half baked cake. There are at least two components of data: quantitative and qualitative. Many do injustice to data and participate inadvertently and ignorantly when they put prime emphasis on quantifiable outcomes. One can measure how many times a student did not come to class (quantitative), but never the amount of times they did come as a result of a teacher’s influence (qualitative). A child might not “move” score wise (quantitatively), but they walk out of class having learned from the teacher’s lesson to respect their peers, themselves, or even adults in their lives( qualitatively). One can never quantify how a personal connection from a beautiful lesson on human value from Lord of the Flies, or The Scarlett Letter may discourage a student from suicide, or school shootings, ad naseum.
We live in a post modern society that is built on scores, and grades and a multiplicity of tests to ascertain data. Education, meaning to “draw out”, was never intended to “draw out scores, measurable, quantifiable, or empirical data“. We live in a data-driven, statistics- crazed society that “uses” data to incriminate, discriminate, and then eliminate and exclude rather than incorporate and include. Thus we induced a subtle form of educational racism, educational classicism, substantiated by systems that feed primarily on quantifiable data. Let me employ the honest child with “low scores”. You can take the dishonest one with “high scores”. Education is not all about scores, and grades and quantifiable data. High scores make us and our schools look good, but at what price to the child’s desire to love, appreciate and value learning for the pure simple, intrinsic pleasure of learning?
Education should seek the appropriate ratio between soul and skills. Anything less and we can educate individuals to be expert at white collar crimes. Man has never been so brilliant, so “educated”, so scientifically educated, technologically advanced and yet so concomitantly socially regressive. Dr. King long ago commiserated on the existence of “guided missiles and misguided men”. We are scientifically proficient and progressive and yet ever socially and morally regressive and perverse. We destroy Darwin’s theory of human evolution. Is education really making us “better”? Are we really evolving? or is education participating in the accidental, incidental inadvertent process of of “devolving”? To be or not to be- that is the question. To evolve (evolution) or devolve (devolution), that is the inquiry!
Enough of the drivel about being data “driven”.